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Abstract

Apoptosis (programmed cell death) is regarded as ultimate differentiation of the cell. We have recently demonstrated that a targeted delivery of Dd-MRP4 (Dictyostelium mitochondrial ribosomal protein S4) suppresses specifically the proliferation of the human cancer cells, by inducing their apoptotic cell death (Chida et al., 2014, doi:10.1186/1475-2867-14-56). This amazing fact was discovered, simply based on the finding that Dd-MRP4 expression is absolutely required for transition of Dictyostelium cells from growth to differentiation (Chida et al., 2008, doi:10.1186/1471-2156-9-25; Maeda et al., 2013, doi:10.3390/biom3040943). Dd-MRP4 protein has quite unique structural characters, in that it is highly basic (pI: about 11.5) and interestingly has several nuclear-localization signals within the molecule. In this review, we introduce briefly the efficacy of several apoptosis-inducing substances reported thus far for cancer therapy, and speculate the possible mechanisms, by which apoptosis is specifically induced by Dd-MRP4, on the basis of its structural uniqueness. We also discuss several issues to be solved for the medical application of ectopically expressed Dd-MRP4 in human cancer cells.
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).